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<blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 5019749" data-attributes="member: 2323"><p><strong>[PLAIN][Realms #498[ Divergent Paths[/PLAIN]</strong></p><p></p><p>As they continued to travel, the barren emptiness of the Astral Plane seemed in direct contrast with the congregation of thoughts and emotions swirling inside each traveler's mind. Ledare was completely out of sorts, but not even she exceeded Morier in the feeling of shock and confusion.</p><p></p><p>Ledare was alive!</p><p></p><p>He'd dreamed of saving her on countless occasions, but as many times as he had played out the scenario in his own mind, Morier never expected to have need to consider how he would react if it actually happened. A string of questions flooded his mind; Had he pulled Ledare from an alternate plane? Was there another Morier there? Had someone found the Heart in Ledare's reality? Who? Where was it now? Morier closed his eyes and tried to force the questions away. He reopened them slowly, hoping to find he had been hallucinating. For as much joy as the sight of Ledare gave him, her appearance carried with it a tremendous sense of dread.</p><p></p><p>"What have I done?" he asked himself, quietly but aloud.</p><p></p><p>"What do you mean, Morier?" Maleko asked. "Done what?" The albino looked at him, his mouth opening and closing slowly like a fish's. He was beyond words. Ledare, keenly aware of Morier's confusion drifted forward to speak.</p><p></p><p>"Morier, do you remember, long ago, on a mountain top when you changed the seasons?" she asked him. "There was... another Morier, and a fight. When you disappeared, Feln and I were forced to go on without you. We held out hope that you would be waiting back with Karak when we returned, but you weren't." She stopped and stared straight into his eyes for a long moment before finding her own words again: "Morier, we thought you were dead. Where have you been?"</p><p></p><p>"I..." Morier groped for explanation. "Ledare, in my world the fight on the mountain top wasn't long ago; it was moments ago. It was an instant before that figure pointed us in this direction. I thought it was a test. I didn't think I could actually..." He trailed off, realizing that he would need to compose himself before he could make any sense to anyone. He pulled a deep breath.</p><p></p><p>"In my world - in my reality - you and Feln turned back at the Test of Air," he told her and her expression creased with the effort of making sense of his words. "Do you remember the conversation we had on the mountain top just before I changed the weather? I told you about the outcome, that I had succeeded in getting the Heart? Do you remember that?"</p><p></p><p>Ledare considered.</p><p></p><p>"I don't know; it was so long ago... We talked about this, Feln and I, after you left. We thought the changes you made were intended to avoid some kind of undesirable outcome." Her voice quavered, but she controlled it and continued. "But it seems all our own outcomes went wrong. Maybe the other Morier was right after all. Trollspit! We managed to muck it all up! Thank the gods you were able to get out alive."</p><p></p><p>"I don't know how much the gods had to do with this," the eldritch warrior grumbled, feeling that the weight of responsibility rested squarely on his own shoulders and not elsewhere. Ledare nodded her acceptance, but from the way that she clutched her holy symbol in her fist, it was plain that she didn't share his feelings on the matter.</p><p></p><p>"When you didn't return, we kept going. The Water Guardian bestowed some kind of mental pull in our heads that directed us toward the Keys..." her voice trailed off. "But you know about that, don't you?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes," the albino said nodding. "Except that in my reality I completed the Tests alone."</p><p></p><p>"That must have been a temendous burden to bear alone. Feln and I often imagined what would have happened to our quest if we had died before we found the Cradle. But at least there were two of us." She shook her head and sighed. "We went to find the Keys intent on rescuing the Heart. But..." Her voice trailed off as she recalled something that the other Morier had said on that mountain top long ago. Her eyes fixed momentarily on this Morier's chest and then widened. "Morier, that Heart destroyed Huzair."</p><p></p><p>It was all becoming more than Morier was able to process. His mind raced and swirled at the complexities of everything he had taken in over the last few hours. Alternate pathways of reality with alternate outcomes... it was the stuff of myth and ether really. None of it seemed real enough, yet nothing about it was any different from the gossamer-draped existence he had been surrounded by from the moment he opened his eyes on the Astral plane.</p><p></p><p>A part of him wanted to know everything about the voyage that Ledare had taken from the moment he left the mountain top until now, but every new detail seemed to cloud his own thinking even more, so he hesitated to ask for much. But somehow the idea of the Heart destroying Huzair was one he couldn't let go of. Morier considered two possibilities; Either Huzair had gotten to the Heart after Morier did, and reaching it on Huzair's reality constituted some sort of terminus that resulted in his death since Morier already possessed it. Or in that universe, Huzair was given Dridana's powers in much the same way he had been, and the power turned Huzair. The mage had always lived his life perched on that precipice, and seemingly limitless power might be enough to push anyone over. Morier wanted to believe neither, but the first possibility at least gave him a sense of comfort about his lost friend. </p><p></p><p>"Destroyed him? How so?" he asked and Ledare looked away. </p><p></p><p>"You killed him, didn't you?" she asked after a moment, fixing her gaze once more on Morier. The shocked expression on his face was a relief to her; she didn't much like the idea of her friends killing one another.</p><p></p><p>"No I did not!" he said with finality. "Huzair may have been an ass much of the time-"</p><p></p><p>"But he did many good things as well," she added and the eldritch warrior nodded his agreement. "You had a connection with Huzair, didn't you, Morier? He spoke of your past, the time you spent together under the guardianship of - someone whose name I can't remember..."</p><p></p><p>"Garan-Zak" Morier supplied it for her and Ledare nodded. It was yet another detail - a joining point from their multiple pasts - more delicate and complex than a web, and she shuddered at that thought.</p><p></p><p>"And if Huzair told you of our friendship, then what would make you think I killed him?" the eldritch warrior pressed.</p><p></p><p>"You said it yourself," she told him. "Or rather that other version of you did. Back on the mountain top, I mean."</p><p></p><p>"That wasn't me!" Morier nearly shouted. "I would never... Huzair died saving the rest of the party."</p><p></p><p>"Your Huzair sounds different from mine," she said. "There was unrest within our party. And Huzair was often at the center of things." She searched for a suitable explanation and Morier recalled how heavily discord had often weighed within his own party - doubly so for the leader. "A quest such as our draws its strength from the fortitude of its followers," Ledare went on. "And we were a group of strong personalities, one in particular with whom Huzair did not see eye to eye."</p><p></p><p>"He rarely saw eye to eye with anyone," Morier mused. </p><p></p><p>"It was settled, though," she said flatly. He paused, but she did not elaborate, and Morier knew it was yet another story to someday be told. "I thought perhaps that would be the end of our troubles. Turned out, it was only the beginning."</p><p></p><p>"So what did Huzair do with the Heart when he had it?" Morier asked and Ledare looked at him strangely.</p><p></p><p>"We never found the Heart, Morier," she told him.</p><p></p><p>"But the Pull..." Morier began and the Janissary shrugged uneasily.</p><p></p><p>"The more I ignored it, the more it began to fade," she explained. "I haven't felt it for some time." The eldritch warrior looked at her as if she were speaking Abyssal.</p><p></p><p>"You IGNORED the Pull?" he asked and Ledare sighed.</p><p></p><p>"When it became obvious that we were never going to get passed that damned Grandfather Plaque I did!" she said with a trifle more venom than she intended. "The thing guarded a door warded with a magical riddle that we could not solve. Huzair convinced us that the answer was: the leper. But it wasn't." Morier smiled and then laughed, but it was a thin, manic laugh, filled with anxiety but little mirth.</p><p></p><p>"The answer to Grandfather Plaque's riddle is: the healer," Morier said, still chuckling nervously. Ledare short him a scornful look.</p><p></p><p>"There's little reason to laugh, Morier," she told him. "Feln died at that door - slain byGrandfather Plaque's magic." That fact snuffed the albino's chuckles at once.</p><p></p><p>"I didn't mean-" Morier started and then he sighed. "My Huzair tried the same answer; I convinced him otherwise." Ledare looked pained and she cast a sidelong glance at the elf.</p><p></p><p>"Well you weren't there to help us," she said. "We failed that test and could go no further. So, yes, I learned to ignore the Pull and eventually it went away entirely. It was a bitter blow, being blocked as we were."</p><p></p><p>"I can imagine-" he began but she cut him off at once.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not sure you can, Morier," she snapped. "We were aimless for a time after that. We scoured the entirity of the Cradle, looking for another way into the Tests, but could find none. After we accidentally opened a dimensional tear to the Negative Material Plane we were all too physically drained to consider further assault on Grandfather Plaque. So we left, at loose ends for the first time in a long time. Huzair did not do well with that."</p><p></p><p>"Is that what caused the friction within your party?" Maleko asked and Ledare looked at him as if she'd forgotten he was even there. He started to offer apology but she shook her head.</p><p></p><p>"It was the start of things, I think," she admitted. "But the real rift didn't occur until we stopped the Aphyx cultists from freeing Zagaroth from his prison."</p><p></p><p>"Zagaroth?" Maleko asked , his face creased with thought. "You mean the Witch-King of Erlacor?" Ledare nodded.</p><p></p><p>"The very same. His prison was in the City of Gold under the ice on the coast of the Frozen Sea," she said and then offered Morier a strained smile, adding, "Beyond the fork's three tines."</p><p></p><p>"The poem!" the eldritch wwarrior exclaimed. "You finally discovered its meaning!" Ledare nodded, but any thrill she felt about that discovery had long ago faded away.</p><p></p><p>"We did," she said. "But at great cost." Morier looked at her quizzically. "Is there anyone... special... for you, Morier?" she asked and Morier started. They had never talked like this, even before the Air Walk, when they had traveled together. He shifted uncomfortably.</p><p></p><p>Ledare explained, "Huzair had... a... a ladyfriend."</p><p></p><p>Morier smiled sardonically, "Of course. Only one?"</p><p></p><p>She laughed, "Well, one he was particularly fond of - an elf named Anania. She was beautiful. She died, an accident really. Huzair was... very angry." Morier sighed and looked off into the misty void.</p><p></p><p>"I've really mucked things up, haven't I?" he groaned, shoulders slumping. Ledare drifted over and lay a comforting hand on one of those shoulders.</p><p></p><p>"I understand your concern about how things stand now, Morier, but I think you must trust yourself. There is a reason why you have made it so far in this quest - farther than anyone else. More and more I am not surprised that it is you," Ledare spoke earnestly. "Yet, maybe, after a time your steadfast tendency to always do what seems right becomes calculable. Like right now, you assume the weight of responsibility not only for your own but for everyone else's actions too. For all that has passed since last we saw one another, you haven't changed much." He looked at her then and she smiled at him, encouragingly.</p><p></p><p>"What is not like you... what differs so dramatically from the past, is what you did on that mountain top," she went on. "The unpredictability of your choice to alter a history that was, for all intents and purposes going along remarkably well, might just be an incredibly strategic move. Have you considered that?" He smiled back at her, though it was a wan smile that required real effort to stir.</p><p></p><p>"I hope what has just transpired has not changed the fabric of reality," Maleko said aloud though it was unclear whether he was speaking to anyone in particular or just to himself. "Perhaps, it is just an anomaly of the Astral Plane. and we shouldn't worry. We are so close to success, and on a clear track, though;I would hate to lose what we have gained."</p><p></p><p>The elf looked directly at Ledare then and suggested,"Tell more us of your world. Who was with you. Obviously I never found you in Ledare's reality," Maleko added, looking pointedly at Morier. Ledare shifted uncomfortably.</p><p></p><p>"I honestly don't know what will happen. I understand your concern - you have done all the right things so far," she admitted. "I may be a distraction." Maleko clucked his tongue.</p><p></p><p>"I wouldn't saay that, Ledare," he told her. "In fact, without you, I dare say there wouldn't be a quest to undertake." She regarded him with surprise.</p><p>"How is it you know me?" the Janissary asked the mage and Maleko smiled at her warmly.</p><p></p><p>"You and Del saved my life in Hillsburg, along the Coast Highway when you rescued my caravan from brigands. You shot a man through the forearm with your crossbow," he told her excitedly. She smiled slightly as the memory came back to her and she suddenly recalled why his face looked so familiar to her.</p><p></p><p>"That I did," she agreed.</p><p></p><p>"I am forever indebted to you and to Del," he said. "I am so sorry for his loss." Just as suddenly, her face darkened and Maleko hastened to add, "He became a great friend. He spoke very fondly of you." Ledare raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.</p><p></p><p>"He missed you greatly and mourned your loss," he concluded. "It was obvious the burden it put on him and served as one source of motivation for this cause." Ledare nodded hesitantly, her expression intent as she put things together for herself.</p><p></p><p>"So in your reality, I died." She spoke slowly, as if tasting each possibility. She was tempted to ask how, but there would be time for that later. "Earlier you mentioned tests... Del was in a test, or at least at a crossroad, I think. I don't know what he was trying to do... maybe alter his own future?" She looked quizzically at Morier, but the albino had sunk deeply into his own thoughts. "There was another version of himself there too. They fought." She stared down at her still soiled robe. "It ended badly for both." She was silent for a moment, lost in thought.</p><p></p><p>"Oftimes, we are our own worst enemies," Maleko said, somewhat lamely he thought once the words had passed his lips. But the words prompted Ledare to nod and look at him.</p><p></p><p>"But how would that have contributed to me being here?" she asked and Maleko tapped thoughtfully at his lips with one slender finger for a moment before ultimately shrugging.</p><p></p><p>"We have no idea how your... I mean our actions affected reality. Any assumptions may be premature, although caution should be wielded," he explained. "For all we know we could have been in a separate dimension completing the test and everything around us remained the same as when we went in. Only you came out instead, Ledare. All theories are plausible at this point. For instance, in Zarnack the Magnificent's first volume on time travel, 'Chronomancy and the Fixed Prime Fallacy', he discusses at length the spontaneous creation of alternate timelines when changes occur at what he called chronologic hot spots or flashpoints-"</p><p></p><p>"Okay. Okay," Ledare interupted. "I get the idea." She had heard all about flashpoints before and didn't think she could take hearing all Maleko knew of the subject.</p><p></p><p>"Of course." Maleko replied graciously but she caught a note of disappointment in his voice.</p><p></p><p>"I might like to read that book if you still have it," Ledare offered and Maleko smiled.</p><p></p><p>"Alas, the copy that I read belonged to the Mageholme library in Barnacus," the elf apologized. Ledare sighed.</p><p></p><p>"By the way," the Janissary observed. "I need a sword. And some armor."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jon Potter, post: 5019749, member: 2323"] [b][PLAIN][Realms #498[ Divergent Paths[/PLAIN][/b] As they continued to travel, the barren emptiness of the Astral Plane seemed in direct contrast with the congregation of thoughts and emotions swirling inside each traveler's mind. Ledare was completely out of sorts, but not even she exceeded Morier in the feeling of shock and confusion. Ledare was alive! He'd dreamed of saving her on countless occasions, but as many times as he had played out the scenario in his own mind, Morier never expected to have need to consider how he would react if it actually happened. A string of questions flooded his mind; Had he pulled Ledare from an alternate plane? Was there another Morier there? Had someone found the Heart in Ledare's reality? Who? Where was it now? Morier closed his eyes and tried to force the questions away. He reopened them slowly, hoping to find he had been hallucinating. For as much joy as the sight of Ledare gave him, her appearance carried with it a tremendous sense of dread. "What have I done?" he asked himself, quietly but aloud. "What do you mean, Morier?" Maleko asked. "Done what?" The albino looked at him, his mouth opening and closing slowly like a fish's. He was beyond words. Ledare, keenly aware of Morier's confusion drifted forward to speak. "Morier, do you remember, long ago, on a mountain top when you changed the seasons?" she asked him. "There was... another Morier, and a fight. When you disappeared, Feln and I were forced to go on without you. We held out hope that you would be waiting back with Karak when we returned, but you weren't." She stopped and stared straight into his eyes for a long moment before finding her own words again: "Morier, we thought you were dead. Where have you been?" "I..." Morier groped for explanation. "Ledare, in my world the fight on the mountain top wasn't long ago; it was moments ago. It was an instant before that figure pointed us in this direction. I thought it was a test. I didn't think I could actually..." He trailed off, realizing that he would need to compose himself before he could make any sense to anyone. He pulled a deep breath. "In my world - in my reality - you and Feln turned back at the Test of Air," he told her and her expression creased with the effort of making sense of his words. "Do you remember the conversation we had on the mountain top just before I changed the weather? I told you about the outcome, that I had succeeded in getting the Heart? Do you remember that?" Ledare considered. "I don't know; it was so long ago... We talked about this, Feln and I, after you left. We thought the changes you made were intended to avoid some kind of undesirable outcome." Her voice quavered, but she controlled it and continued. "But it seems all our own outcomes went wrong. Maybe the other Morier was right after all. Trollspit! We managed to muck it all up! Thank the gods you were able to get out alive." "I don't know how much the gods had to do with this," the eldritch warrior grumbled, feeling that the weight of responsibility rested squarely on his own shoulders and not elsewhere. Ledare nodded her acceptance, but from the way that she clutched her holy symbol in her fist, it was plain that she didn't share his feelings on the matter. "When you didn't return, we kept going. The Water Guardian bestowed some kind of mental pull in our heads that directed us toward the Keys..." her voice trailed off. "But you know about that, don't you?" "Yes," the albino said nodding. "Except that in my reality I completed the Tests alone." "That must have been a temendous burden to bear alone. Feln and I often imagined what would have happened to our quest if we had died before we found the Cradle. But at least there were two of us." She shook her head and sighed. "We went to find the Keys intent on rescuing the Heart. But..." Her voice trailed off as she recalled something that the other Morier had said on that mountain top long ago. Her eyes fixed momentarily on this Morier's chest and then widened. "Morier, that Heart destroyed Huzair." It was all becoming more than Morier was able to process. His mind raced and swirled at the complexities of everything he had taken in over the last few hours. Alternate pathways of reality with alternate outcomes... it was the stuff of myth and ether really. None of it seemed real enough, yet nothing about it was any different from the gossamer-draped existence he had been surrounded by from the moment he opened his eyes on the Astral plane. A part of him wanted to know everything about the voyage that Ledare had taken from the moment he left the mountain top until now, but every new detail seemed to cloud his own thinking even more, so he hesitated to ask for much. But somehow the idea of the Heart destroying Huzair was one he couldn't let go of. Morier considered two possibilities; Either Huzair had gotten to the Heart after Morier did, and reaching it on Huzair's reality constituted some sort of terminus that resulted in his death since Morier already possessed it. Or in that universe, Huzair was given Dridana's powers in much the same way he had been, and the power turned Huzair. The mage had always lived his life perched on that precipice, and seemingly limitless power might be enough to push anyone over. Morier wanted to believe neither, but the first possibility at least gave him a sense of comfort about his lost friend. "Destroyed him? How so?" he asked and Ledare looked away. "You killed him, didn't you?" she asked after a moment, fixing her gaze once more on Morier. The shocked expression on his face was a relief to her; she didn't much like the idea of her friends killing one another. "No I did not!" he said with finality. "Huzair may have been an ass much of the time-" "But he did many good things as well," she added and the eldritch warrior nodded his agreement. "You had a connection with Huzair, didn't you, Morier? He spoke of your past, the time you spent together under the guardianship of - someone whose name I can't remember..." "Garan-Zak" Morier supplied it for her and Ledare nodded. It was yet another detail - a joining point from their multiple pasts - more delicate and complex than a web, and she shuddered at that thought. "And if Huzair told you of our friendship, then what would make you think I killed him?" the eldritch warrior pressed. "You said it yourself," she told him. "Or rather that other version of you did. Back on the mountain top, I mean." "That wasn't me!" Morier nearly shouted. "I would never... Huzair died saving the rest of the party." "Your Huzair sounds different from mine," she said. "There was unrest within our party. And Huzair was often at the center of things." She searched for a suitable explanation and Morier recalled how heavily discord had often weighed within his own party - doubly so for the leader. "A quest such as our draws its strength from the fortitude of its followers," Ledare went on. "And we were a group of strong personalities, one in particular with whom Huzair did not see eye to eye." "He rarely saw eye to eye with anyone," Morier mused. "It was settled, though," she said flatly. He paused, but she did not elaborate, and Morier knew it was yet another story to someday be told. "I thought perhaps that would be the end of our troubles. Turned out, it was only the beginning." "So what did Huzair do with the Heart when he had it?" Morier asked and Ledare looked at him strangely. "We never found the Heart, Morier," she told him. "But the Pull..." Morier began and the Janissary shrugged uneasily. "The more I ignored it, the more it began to fade," she explained. "I haven't felt it for some time." The eldritch warrior looked at her as if she were speaking Abyssal. "You IGNORED the Pull?" he asked and Ledare sighed. "When it became obvious that we were never going to get passed that damned Grandfather Plaque I did!" she said with a trifle more venom than she intended. "The thing guarded a door warded with a magical riddle that we could not solve. Huzair convinced us that the answer was: the leper. But it wasn't." Morier smiled and then laughed, but it was a thin, manic laugh, filled with anxiety but little mirth. "The answer to Grandfather Plaque's riddle is: the healer," Morier said, still chuckling nervously. Ledare short him a scornful look. "There's little reason to laugh, Morier," she told him. "Feln died at that door - slain byGrandfather Plaque's magic." That fact snuffed the albino's chuckles at once. "I didn't mean-" Morier started and then he sighed. "My Huzair tried the same answer; I convinced him otherwise." Ledare looked pained and she cast a sidelong glance at the elf. "Well you weren't there to help us," she said. "We failed that test and could go no further. So, yes, I learned to ignore the Pull and eventually it went away entirely. It was a bitter blow, being blocked as we were." "I can imagine-" he began but she cut him off at once. "I'm not sure you can, Morier," she snapped. "We were aimless for a time after that. We scoured the entirity of the Cradle, looking for another way into the Tests, but could find none. After we accidentally opened a dimensional tear to the Negative Material Plane we were all too physically drained to consider further assault on Grandfather Plaque. So we left, at loose ends for the first time in a long time. Huzair did not do well with that." "Is that what caused the friction within your party?" Maleko asked and Ledare looked at him as if she'd forgotten he was even there. He started to offer apology but she shook her head. "It was the start of things, I think," she admitted. "But the real rift didn't occur until we stopped the Aphyx cultists from freeing Zagaroth from his prison." "Zagaroth?" Maleko asked , his face creased with thought. "You mean the Witch-King of Erlacor?" Ledare nodded. "The very same. His prison was in the City of Gold under the ice on the coast of the Frozen Sea," she said and then offered Morier a strained smile, adding, "Beyond the fork's three tines." "The poem!" the eldritch wwarrior exclaimed. "You finally discovered its meaning!" Ledare nodded, but any thrill she felt about that discovery had long ago faded away. "We did," she said. "But at great cost." Morier looked at her quizzically. "Is there anyone... special... for you, Morier?" she asked and Morier started. They had never talked like this, even before the Air Walk, when they had traveled together. He shifted uncomfortably. Ledare explained, "Huzair had... a... a ladyfriend." Morier smiled sardonically, "Of course. Only one?" She laughed, "Well, one he was particularly fond of - an elf named Anania. She was beautiful. She died, an accident really. Huzair was... very angry." Morier sighed and looked off into the misty void. "I've really mucked things up, haven't I?" he groaned, shoulders slumping. Ledare drifted over and lay a comforting hand on one of those shoulders. "I understand your concern about how things stand now, Morier, but I think you must trust yourself. There is a reason why you have made it so far in this quest - farther than anyone else. More and more I am not surprised that it is you," Ledare spoke earnestly. "Yet, maybe, after a time your steadfast tendency to always do what seems right becomes calculable. Like right now, you assume the weight of responsibility not only for your own but for everyone else's actions too. For all that has passed since last we saw one another, you haven't changed much." He looked at her then and she smiled at him, encouragingly. "What is not like you... what differs so dramatically from the past, is what you did on that mountain top," she went on. "The unpredictability of your choice to alter a history that was, for all intents and purposes going along remarkably well, might just be an incredibly strategic move. Have you considered that?" He smiled back at her, though it was a wan smile that required real effort to stir. "I hope what has just transpired has not changed the fabric of reality," Maleko said aloud though it was unclear whether he was speaking to anyone in particular or just to himself. "Perhaps, it is just an anomaly of the Astral Plane. and we shouldn't worry. We are so close to success, and on a clear track, though;I would hate to lose what we have gained." The elf looked directly at Ledare then and suggested,"Tell more us of your world. Who was with you. Obviously I never found you in Ledare's reality," Maleko added, looking pointedly at Morier. Ledare shifted uncomfortably. "I honestly don't know what will happen. I understand your concern - you have done all the right things so far," she admitted. "I may be a distraction." Maleko clucked his tongue. "I wouldn't saay that, Ledare," he told her. "In fact, without you, I dare say there wouldn't be a quest to undertake." She regarded him with surprise. "How is it you know me?" the Janissary asked the mage and Maleko smiled at her warmly. "You and Del saved my life in Hillsburg, along the Coast Highway when you rescued my caravan from brigands. You shot a man through the forearm with your crossbow," he told her excitedly. She smiled slightly as the memory came back to her and she suddenly recalled why his face looked so familiar to her. "That I did," she agreed. "I am forever indebted to you and to Del," he said. "I am so sorry for his loss." Just as suddenly, her face darkened and Maleko hastened to add, "He became a great friend. He spoke very fondly of you." Ledare raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. "He missed you greatly and mourned your loss," he concluded. "It was obvious the burden it put on him and served as one source of motivation for this cause." Ledare nodded hesitantly, her expression intent as she put things together for herself. "So in your reality, I died." She spoke slowly, as if tasting each possibility. She was tempted to ask how, but there would be time for that later. "Earlier you mentioned tests... Del was in a test, or at least at a crossroad, I think. I don't know what he was trying to do... maybe alter his own future?" She looked quizzically at Morier, but the albino had sunk deeply into his own thoughts. "There was another version of himself there too. They fought." She stared down at her still soiled robe. "It ended badly for both." She was silent for a moment, lost in thought. "Oftimes, we are our own worst enemies," Maleko said, somewhat lamely he thought once the words had passed his lips. But the words prompted Ledare to nod and look at him. "But how would that have contributed to me being here?" she asked and Maleko tapped thoughtfully at his lips with one slender finger for a moment before ultimately shrugging. "We have no idea how your... I mean our actions affected reality. Any assumptions may be premature, although caution should be wielded," he explained. "For all we know we could have been in a separate dimension completing the test and everything around us remained the same as when we went in. Only you came out instead, Ledare. All theories are plausible at this point. For instance, in Zarnack the Magnificent's first volume on time travel, 'Chronomancy and the Fixed Prime Fallacy', he discusses at length the spontaneous creation of alternate timelines when changes occur at what he called chronologic hot spots or flashpoints-" "Okay. Okay," Ledare interupted. "I get the idea." She had heard all about flashpoints before and didn't think she could take hearing all Maleko knew of the subject. "Of course." Maleko replied graciously but she caught a note of disappointment in his voice. "I might like to read that book if you still have it," Ledare offered and Maleko smiled. "Alas, the copy that I read belonged to the Mageholme library in Barnacus," the elf apologized. Ledare sighed. "By the way," the Janissary observed. "I need a sword. And some armor." [/QUOTE]
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Realms of Enlightenment: The Grey Companions (final update posted 02.14.10)
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